Bloody Winchesters
by clair beaubien
Summary: WIP. Crowley's opinion of the Winchesters. Will include spoilers from all seasons most likely. Ch 4: Crowley comments on Dean's fighting spirit.
1. John Winchester

Bloody Winchesters.

I've always complimented myself on being the only creature - natural or supernatural, human or otherwise - who never, _ever_ underestimated those denim-clad nightmares known as Dean & Sam Winchester. I was always, always careful to not commit the "One Mistake You Must Never Commit" that my enemies and allies always committed when they dealt with the Winchesters, and so I was always able to stay one step ahead of them.

That mistake is that you must never stop taking the measure of the Winchesters as you deal with them. Complacency equals death; it's as simple as that. As many, if not all, of the Winchester adversaries learned the hard way.

They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions? Well, it throngs with those that the Winchesters have killed.

I'd have to say that Azazel was the first to make this egregious mistake. He made it with John Winchester, and the result was no less lethal.

Oh, he led Daddy Winchester on quite the merry chase for twenty-two years but how soon after John Winchester figured out who & what he was dealing with was Azazel dead? A year? Less?

Can't say I particularly like those odds.

And Azazel's mistake? He wanted John Winchester in hell with such determined passion that he never looked past his first measure of "John Winchester will die to save his sons," which he parlayed into getting John in hell. If he had taken a second measure, however, Azazel might've realized "John Winchester will never stop trying to destroy me." Which perchance might've gotten him to realize, "I've just given John Winchester eternity on my home turf to figure out how to destroy me."

I know the old saying is "Keep your enemies closer" but that tends to work just the opposite when your enemy is a Winchester, doesn't it?

Azazel put John Winchester on the rack and waited for him to break.

And waited.

And waited.

And then waited some more.

He didn't break.

One hundred years Azazel had John Winchester right where he thought he always wanted him. But despite the torture, John Winchester used his time to not only withstand breaking, but to assess the territory and his enemy. He managed to look for - and find - cracks and chinks and weaknesses. He noticed patterns; even in the vast inferno-eternity of hell, John Winchester found patterns and reiterations of thought and movement and intentions.

He studied them. He memorized them. He analyzed them.

And he used what he learned to march out of hell.

Not run. Not walk. Not crawl.

When that gate to hell opened, only one human soul escaped. _Bloody John Winchester_. He stood up from his rack of torture and _marched_ out.

And the beasts and minions and demons who had tortured him so long and so heartlessly didn't even try to stop him. No, as soon as John Winchester broke his bonds, it was all, '_Yes, Mr. Winchester. No, Mr. Winchester. Carry your bags for you, Mr. Winchester?'_

And how long after John Winchester cleared that damned devil's gate was Azazel as dead as a herring?

A minute? Less?

Bloody Winchesters.

.

To Be Continued


	2. Dean - prologue

"To know ten thousand things, know one well" ― Miyamoto Musashi, A Book of Five Rings: The Classic Guide to Strategy

* * *

_Bloody Winchesters._

Dean Winchester is not a man to be underestimated, and yet so many of my kind do. So many of _all_ kinds underestimate him, and I have come to the conclusion that that's just the way Dean wants it. Any weapon is stronger when your opponent doesn't believe how strong it actually is, after all.

With Dean, you can't just take a measure of him. Even a dozen measures won't tell you all that there is to Dean Winchester. It won't even scratch the surface. It will only scratch the shell, the façade, and the next thing you know - (_fingers snapping_) - you're one more tortured being on the Winchester express train to hell.

Not wanting to board that particular train, I made it my special project to study Dean Winchester before I decided to take my eternity into my hands and work with him. I studied both Winchesters to be sure, Moose _and_ Squirrel, but I had only just dabbled my toes in the Winchester River of Information when I knew that Dean was the one I needed most to pay attention to.

Dean Winchester presents himself to the general populace of both worlds, the here and the hereafter, as a rough & tumble, barely literate, entirely unselfconscious buffoon who cares more for his own fleshly pleasures than anything else. And the general populace goes happily along with that pretense and never thinks to look behind it.

And then they wonder how Dean Winchester got the better of them.

I, however, have looked behind the smokescreen and have seen the true Dean Winchester.

The first thing you need to know about Dean is - well, there is no _one_ first thing. To succeed with Dean Winchester, to ultimately defeat him, one must know _everything_ about him, all at once, right from the beginning, before so much as _thinking_ about contesting him.

Because, unless one is very, very clever, one will inevitably become ensnared in the tangle of who and what and why Dean Winchester is.

The first thing Dean Winchester is - is _Dean Winchester_.

If only the masses could understand that and exactly what it means.

To Be Continued

* * *

A/N1: sorry this chapter is so short. When I got to this part, I realized that writing about Dean is going to take much longer & be much more involved than writing about John was. So I wanted to post this "prologue" as it were.

A/N2: the opinions given in this chapter are not necessarily those of the author. I'm just saying


	3. Dean's intellect

"Genius gives birth, talent delivers. - Jack Kerouac

* * *

Did I say I looked behind the smokescreen and saw the real Dean Winchester? Is that what I said?

_Then how did I end up tied to this bloody chair, inside this bloody church, with the bloody Moose jabbing his bloody blood into my bloody neck every bloody hour?!_

But I get ahead of myself.

As I was saying, the first thing Dean Winchester is - is Dean Winchester.

What does that mean, exactly?

Let's start out by acknowledging that Dean Winchester has layers. Many layers. Multitudinous layers. There are more layers in Dean Winchester's psyche than there are in his wardrobe. And any fool who assumes there isn't _deserves_ the surprise between the eyes that is inevitably waiting for him.

But Dean also has more than layers to his psyche. He has niches and cubbyholes, hidden corners, two way mirrors, false walls, dead end stair cases, and a seemingly inexhaustible supply of trap doors.

And so, for the unaware, the foolish, the stupid, he is a walking, talking, denim-clad death sentence.

This is not to imply that Dean's is an overly complicated mind to sort out. On the contrary, as it applies to hunting, Dean's train of thought is quite straightforward: '_who is the bad guy? where do I find the bad guy? how do I kill the bad guy? oh look - no more bad guy.' _

Simplicity itself.

What seems to have completely buggered all my late, lamented, adversarial predecessors is that they overcomplicated Dean's train of thought, while at the same time oversimplifying the methods by which he answers those three little questions that his train of thought poses.

Because Dean Winchester is a genius. More than genius - he's a genius with talent.

Oh, he may generally pass himself off as a slacker who didn't even graduate high school and is fortunate to know his own name, but in reality Dean Winchester's intellect is a wonder to behold. Were I on the other side of the supernatural fence, I could and would gladly spend eternity writing tome after tome on the workings of Dean Winchester's intellect.

Sam's brain may have the larger storage capacity, and he can sort and retrieve and spout off reams of information at amazing speeds. But Dean - Dean can take that information and instantly create works of art.

Well, unless you're the thing he wants to kill, and then it's a nightmare.

Doctor Benton, who devised an immortality potion, thought he was safe from Dean Winchester simply because he couldn't be killed.

Well, he didn't have to _kill_ you, did he? No, in the spare seconds it took to break into your hovel and sneak into your dungeon, Dean Winchester spotted a bottle of chloroform and quickly deduced, '_chloroform on knife + knife jabbed in beating heart = unconscious monster; oh look, no more bad guy.'_

Y'moron. You're still inexorably rotting away under six feet of earth in a Frigidaire, aren't you?

Or when Kevin Tran, God's most annoying little prophet, told the Winchesters that the first trial was to kill a hellhound, Dean hadn't even blinked before he comprehended that they only needed to find someone had a deal that was due to find a hellhound.

If it hadn't been my hellhound that they ended up killing, I might have even congratulated him on that strategy.

How many times have how many fools pitched Dean across a room, then confidently strode across that room to deliver their coup de grace, only to find themselves standing in the middle of a devil's trap hidden under an otherwise innocuous throw rug?

Can I actually be the only one who has even _considered_ understanding all facets of my opponent?

Apparently yes.

Then how did I end up in this bloody chair?

To Be Continued


	4. Dean's Fighting Spirit

"What God abandoned, these defended…" A.E. Housman, Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries

* * *

Zachariah got it wrong. He got it so unbelievably wrong.

He had all the power - and observational technology - of Heaven on his side and he _still_ got it wrong. He took one measure of Dean, one measure only, and thought that was enough.

When it was show-time for the Apocalypse and the stage was set and the orchestra was tuning up, Zachariah actually thought that Dean Winchester would placidly wait for his cue, content with 'burgers, beer and the promise of babes', as though he were some rock star diva who needed to be kept calm and diverted lest he wander off right before the big show.

I can even see Zachariah taking the blue M&Ms out of the candy bowl, cackling all the while over what a mad genius he was.

Moron.

He got it so wrong.

Yes, Dean Winchester is ultimately, overwhelmingly, undeniably hedonistic, inclined to a life of sensual pleasure, happily partaking of all the burgers, beers & babes within his reach.

But only after his job is done and everyone within his reach is safe.

Let me say that again for those of you who didn't get it the first time (if there are any of you left alive): Dean Winchester indulges himself o_nly after everyone __**else**__ is safe. _

Zachariah got it so wrong.

Pardon me while I snicker a bit.

(And then perhaps just a bit more.)

Dean has said that, in another life, he would have wanted to be a firefighter. An apt choice. Firefighters and Winchesters are, after all, the only people who will march onhell to save other people, damn the consequences.

You tell a firefighter that someone _might_ be trapped in a burning building, and in they go, searching top to bottom, attic to cellar, room by room by fire-filled room, fighting smoke and flame and collapsing floors, not stopping until they've found the lost and rescued the imperiled.

Or until they've died trying.

You tell Dean Winchester that someone _might_ be in danger, and in he goes. All else is set aside. He doesn't sit in a 'green room', twiddling his thumbs, waiting to be told when to act. He _acts._

And then he continues to act_._

Firefighters never throw up their hands and hoses and say, '_Oh well, we did our best, this fire's got us beat. Let 'er burn.'_

They fight and they fight and they fight some more until they have won. And they do always win. They may not save every person, every building, every scrap of property, and they may carry those particular scars of failure for the rest of their lives.

But firefighters always win because fire is their enemy and the fire always dies in the end.

Just as the Winchesters' enemies always die.

Because they never stop fighting.

.

To be continued

* * *

A/N: although this poem was written for soldiers in WWI, I have long thought it appropriate for firefighters.

I post it here in honor of the 19 firefighters who died this weekend fighting the wild fire in Arizona,

and for all firefighters, everywhere, living and dead:

**Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries**

These, in the day when heaven was falling,

The hour when earth's foundations fled,

Followed their mercenary calling,

And took their wages, and are dead.

Their shoulders held the sky suspended;

They stood, and earth's foundations stay;

What God abandoned, these defended,

And saved the sum of things for pay.

_A.E. Housman_


End file.
